


It's better to have loved and lost.

by Bananasplit86



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Sad, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 01:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11841192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananasplit86/pseuds/Bananasplit86
Summary: He’s wondered how long it would take for the disease to find him. How long it would take for the first flowers to bloom and burst from his body. A year. He wonders if that’s good or not. Wonders if the disease had missed him, scooted over him and then veered back when it realised that it had missed a poor lonely sucker in love.--In which, Hanahaki Disease finally catches up with Leon.





	It's better to have loved and lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure I like the ending.  
> This isn't checked and isn't Beta'd.
> 
> I'm sorry.

They’re green. Of course they’re fucking green. 

And Carnations. Beautiful and simple just like _him_. And his favourites.

Leon sighs and scoops the flowers up from the washbowl gently. He’s not really sure what to do with them. Toss them in the garden waste bin? Toss them in the bin? Or find a vase and keep them in water? 

He figures that the vase is probably not the best option. They’d be a more in his face reminder of his unrequited love than it usually is. So the bin it is. That gets emptied more often than his garden waste bin, which means they’ll be gone quicker. 

The bin lid clangs when it shuts and Leon winces at the sound. It’s hollow, rather like he feels actually and the sounds just rams that home to him. It rams home how alone he feels, how empty and hopelessly lonely he is. And dying.

He’s wondered how long it would take for the disease to find him. How long it would take for the first flowers to bloom and burst from his body. A year. He wonders if that’s good or not. Wonders if the disease had missed him, scooted over him and then veered back when it realised that it had missed a poor lonely sucker in love.

He sighs. The club needs to know, but he knows that’s it then. They’ll place him on medical leave and run all the tests that they can think of. They’ll demand to know who he’s been unlucky enough to fall in love with, demand to know so that they can try to make them see sense. See how wonderful Leon is and how much they’re missing out on. He'll tell them when it gets worse, he reasons. 

He laughs at the thought. _If only they knew._

He figures that since this is the first time he’s coughed them up, the first time that the disease has shown itself to him, he has time. How much, he doesn’t know. That depends on him. And Christoph.

Christoph Kramer. His best friend. His sounding board. His brother in arms. 

Christoph Kramer : the love of his life. And now, as it turns out, the cause of his impending death.

Sleep sounds like a good idea. Sleep, he figures, will stop him thinking, will stop him coughing, will prolong his life (or death depending on how he views it).

\--

Benni spots it first, sees the green petals poking from between his fingers at the end of practice. Benni, the ever observant friend and mentor. Benni who now has a sad look in his eyes and his lips pressed into a thinner line than normal. Benni who knows everything.

“How long?” Benni hangs back, waiting for everyone else to disappear from around them.

“Last night.” Leon says quickly, wanting the words out as quickly as possible. 

“How many?”

“Flowers?” Benni nods. “This is the third.”

“So there’s time then.”

“I don’t want time Benni. Time won’t fix this. Time won’t make him love me. Time won’t do anything except make this hurt more. He loves someone else and I’ve made peace with that, I did a long time ago.”

“So you’ve just been doing what, counting down time until the flowers came?”

“Yes.”

Benni closes his eyes and Leon feels sorry for him in a way. He knows Benni, knows that he’ll do anything for anyone, knows that he’ll destroy himself trying to find a way to fix this for Leon. But then, Benni isn’t the one who’s dying, he isn’t the one who is slowly drowning in flowers, so he has no need to feel sorry for him.

“But if he knew Leon, if he knew, he might-”

“He might what?” Leon cuts him off abruptly. “Suddenly realise it’s me he’s loved all along? Or he’d pretend to love me so that I don’t die? It doesn’t work that way and you know it, and he’d make himself miserable just so that I’d survive. I’m not that selfish Benni. He loves Manuel. Not me. And I’m ok with that. It’s my own fault for falling in love with someone who was already in love.You can’t fix this. You can’t fix me.”

“You could have the operation.” Benni sounds exasperated by now and Leon can see the worry in his eyes, the sadness even deeper now that he realises that Leon is ok with this, and is letting it happen.

“What’s that old saying again - it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I’d rather die feeling love in my life than live an empty lie. However unrequited that love is.”

“I’m sorry Leon.”

“Don’t be.” Leon coughs up another green carnation. His fourth.

\--

He meets Christoph for dinner a few days later, back in Bochum at their favourite restaurant and Leon feels his chest constrict. Not from the flowers, but from the ache deep inside. The ache that swells every single fucking time he sees Christoph’s face. The ache that permeates his bones and shakes his very core. 

He smiles as Christoph hugs him and swallows down the cough, and the carnation, that threatens to erupt. It’s hard to do, especially now that it’s more often, but he does. He doesn’t need Christoph to know what’s happening. Doesn’t need the sympathy from him or the sad smile. He just wants memories. Happy memories with his friend.

For one last time.

Christoph is Christoph. He’s happy and warm, open and easy. And Leon can’t stop the smile that creeps onto his face, the one that makes his cheeks hurt and his jaw ache. He wants to remember this Christoph. He wants the last time they see each other to be happy and free of the burden of Leon’s disease. 

He knows it’s the final time. The year or so of being healthy before the disease finally found him has caught up and is moving alarmingly fast but Leon is ok with that. He’s come to terms with it. Made peace with it.

He lets Christoph talk and gesticulate, let’s him babble about anything and everything. Gladbach, Manuel, his sister, everything. And Leon listens. He just listens. Committing everything into his memory for when he’s taking his last breaths, giving himself memories to soothe and ease the transition. Of sorts. 

“Are you ok Leon? You seem distant.” Christoph stops and Leon feels his piercing gaze on him.

“I’m fine. I’m just enjoying being here with you. It’s nice.”

“You always were a bad liar.” Christoph smiles. “What's wrong? I heard you're injured.” 

“Oh it's nothing serious. Just the old shoulder again, you know how it is. Those injuries we get sometimes and they just keep coming back.” 

Christoph twists his napkin between his fingers and nods. Leon can see that he doesn't really believe the lie, but it's ok because he's smiling once more. “I'll gladly help out round your house if need me to. Just call me.”

“I don't want to take you-” he coughs suddenly, hands jumping to his mouth with his own napkin “-to take you away from time with Manu.” He recovers, hands smothering the green with the white, bunching around it and crushing it.

The pain returns. With vengeance and he barely makes it through the remainder of the dinner. The coughs are more frequent and it's harder to cover up, but somehow he makes it. At least he thinks he does. Christoph might have caught a flash of colour, but he doesn't mention it at all. 

“Please, just call me, Leon, if you need me. I'm always there. And you shouldn't be alone.”

Leon swears he sees a flash of something there, deep behind Christoph’s eyes and he smiles softly. “I'm fine, really. Please just go and don't worry about me.”

Christoph shakes his head. “I'll always worry Leon. I'm your best friend. That's what we do.”

Leon pats his arm and pulls him into a warm hug before letting go. For the final time.

“Just promise me one thing Christoph. Be happy.” He says as they part.

\--

It's painful. So very painful at the end. 

He feels like he's drowning. Like his lungs are being stretched to breaking point. His ribs break one by one and he gasps for breath. 

Benni squeezes his hand tightly. “Let go Leon. If that's what you really want. Let go.”

Leon tries to smile. “Tell him to keep the promise to me Benni.” 

The words are strained and an effort for him to get out, but he manages before he turns to his parents.

“I'm sorry.” He mumbles.

He coughs and another carnation bursts from between his lips. The one good point is that the disease took hold of him quickly, a matter of weeks, and that his suffering was relatively short. 

“I love you.” He says to his parents, to Benni and, to Christoph. If only he could hear him. 

_I love you, forever and always_ , he thinks one more time as a final solitary red tinged green carnation blooms.


End file.
